


someone got violent and did not think twice

by flysafepapi



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:48:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26662465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flysafepapi/pseuds/flysafepapi
Summary: “Don’t. Just tell me what you need from me.” He doesn’t mean for it to sound so pathetic, but there it is. He doesn’t look up when Tommy steps closer, too close for people not to talk if they were to see it, and wants to hit him when he says “Just you.”
Relationships: Grace Burgess/Tommy Shelby, Tommy Shelby/Original Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Come rant at me about pretty gangsters on my [tumblr!](https://flysafepapi.tumblr.com/)

”What are you doing here? I work until four. If there’s nothing wrong with you then you should leave, I’ve already got a whole room full of people to see.”

“Tommy sent us around, said he had something that needed your help.”

Leo doesn’t sigh, but it’s a close thing. You grow up with someone, save their life, and suddenly you can’t get rid of them. He supposes he could leave the city, but this is his home and he’s not going to let Tommy chase him out of it. 

“Is he too busy to come and see me himself now? Makes sense, that’s why he left in the first place.” It’s a cruel thing to say, he knows that, but he can’t stop himself from asking. It’s been three months and he still can’t escape him no matter how hard he tries. “I shouldn’t have said that. Don’t worry, Arthur, tell him I’ll be there.”

Against all his better judgement, he does go, carrying his case with him because there’s rarely a situation where Tommy asks for him and doesn’t need some sort of medical help. To his surprise, no one is bleeding when he steps into the house and for once, there’s no need for him to patch anyone up after they’ve gotten into trouble. 

“You came.” He wants to hit Tommy for sounding surprised, but settles for pointedly not looking at him, keeping his eyes to the walls and the paintings that line them. It’s safer, that way. 

“I said I would, didn’t I? I keep my promises.” 

“That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it? You left. Arthur said you needed my help, can we just get it over with so I can go, I’ve got things to do.” 

“Leo, I-”

“Don’t. Just tell me what you want from me.” He doesn’t mean for it to sound so pathetic, but there it is. He doesn’t look up when Tommy steps closer, too close for people not to talk if they were to see it, and wants to hit him when he says “Just you.”

“Now who’s not being fair?”

Tommy laughs, and as close as they are Leo can feel the way it vibrates through him. He wishes it wasn’t so intoxicating. “I never said I played fair, especially when it comes to you.”

“Things change, Tommy. You don’t get to come back and act like nothing happened. Please just tell me what you want me to do so I can go home, it’s been a long day.”

“I need to know how to fake someone’s death.”

“Why would you- Never mind, I’m not going to ask.”

The next few hours pass faster than he thought as they work out the details, and when he looks up at the clock next it’s already past eight. He hasn’t eaten yet, a fact that his stomach reminds him of when it growls suddenly.

“I’ve got to go.”

Tommy’s hand shoots out and wraps around his wrist, and when he looks up their faces are too close together for comfort right now. “Stay with me.”

“I can’t.”

He shouldn’t look back when he leaves, but he does. Those eyes watching him are all he sees in his dreams that night.


	2. Chapter 2

“Messed it up again, didn’t you?”

“Not the time, John.” Leo steps around him and keeps working, grabbing the bandages from the top cupboard and carrying them over to the man sitting on the edge of the makeshift hospital bed in the room, ignoring the way John stays on his heels and keeps talking. He’s got more important things to do than think about Tommy Shelby, he tells himself, but John is nothing if not persistent and he’s still there by the end of the day, lounging back in Leo’s desk chair like he owns it. Not for the first time, he wants to punch a Shelby in the face, but his fighting days are over.

“Why don’t you just talk to him?”

“Because I’ll probably end up killing him, and trust me, I know just where to stab to make it work.” 

“He’s been miserable.”

“He’s always miserable, I don’t think he knows how to be anything else.”

Sometimes he wonders if anyone else noticed what happened. It’s more on himself, he knows that, falling for a set of pretty eyes and whispered words in the dark. For all his talk of never answering to anyone, or being afraid of anything, it sure seemed like cowardice when he’d disappeared after that night. Leo would have figured it was just disinterest, if he hadn’t seen him with the barmaid.

“Come on, Leo, just come and have a drink with us.”

“If I say yes, will you leave me alone?”

“Nope, but I’ll stop for the rest of the week.” 

John grins at him, and he hates that he can’t stop himself from smiling back. Whatever problems he has with Tommy don’t extend to the rest of his family, he has to remind himself. They’ve got nothing to do with it. It’s his fault that they haven’t been around as much as they used to be, because seeing any of them just made the rejection hurt more, and it has been a while since he’s had a night out that didn’t involve house calls for fever or something similar.

“Alright, but you’re paying. I get paid in food and favours.”

“Who said anything about paying?”

**

“Bottle of rum, Harry, got an old friend here tonight.” It’s amusing, watching John try to throw an arm over his shoulders, given their height difference. “Saved all our asses in the war.”

“And it was a full time job.” He thanks the man behind the bar and takes the bottle, not bothering with glasses when he takes a drink directly from it, and lets John lead him into the small room just off the bar. Arthur and a few of the other boys are already there, and Arthur looks at him in amusement when he stumbles through the door, trying to keep from dropping the bottle when John bumps into him. 

“Are you two drunk already?”

“Not yet, but give it an hour.”

“An hour? You underestimate us, Leo.”

It’s nice, drinking with them again, and he’s just wondering why he stopped when the door opens. Even before he turns, he knows that it’s Tommy standing there. He freezes in the middle of his story about the time in France when they all went skinny dipping and Arthur got caught by the couple that owned the land, words tapering off into silence. He should have known that Tommy would show up eventually, but between the drinks and the stories he’d forgotten. It’s harder to ignore him when he’s sitting directly across the table, looking at him intently, but he manages by getting into a game of poker with Arthur and Isaiah, and eventually he relaxes. Too soon, apparently. 

“It’s been a while since you’ve come out with us. We were beginning to think you didn’t want anything to do with us.”

“Is that right? It’s a miracle you noticed, as caught up with the little blonde thing out there like you have been.”

The room goes deadly silent for a pause of about ten seconds, just enough time for him to realise that he might have taken it too far, before Tommy tells everyone to get out. Unsurprisingly, they listen and leave him to face Tommy alone, although John does give him an apologetic look as he goes, taking the bottle of rum with him. He knows that mentioning Grace, or that she left, is a sore spot, like most conversations are when it comes to the man that’d staring at him with a carefully blank face.

“Is that how it’s going to be?”

“Truthfully? It’s not going to be anything, because you made your choice and you don’t get to come back when it’s convenient for you. What happened, did she see that you were finally getting money and decide that you were worth her attention?”

“That’s not fair.” 

“Neither is life, but we have to get through it anyway. I’m going home, I’ve got work tomorrow,” he says, grabbing his coat from the back of his chair and pulling it on, keeping his eyes carefully away from Tommy’s face. He knows his limitations, and he’s always been afraid that if he looks in those eyes he might never get out again. “So if you’ve got nothing else to say-”

“We’re getting married.”

It’s only the drink that makes him feel like he’s going to be sick, he tells himself, nothing else. It’s just the rum. 

“Congratulations. Wasn’t that what you told me you wanted, back before the war broke all of us? Pretty wife, house out in country? You finally got there.”

“She’s pregnant. That’s the only reason-”

“If you’re about to tell me that you wish it could have turned out differently, just don’t. It could have, if you weren’t so scared of who you are.”

“And you know who I am?”

He shouldn’t, he knows he shouldn’t, but he leans in and kisses him anyway, grabbing by the back of the neck and digging his fingernails in, and only pulls back when he feels Tommy’s hands curl tight into his coat, his mouth opening on a sigh when Leo bites his bottom lip until he tastes blood.

“Yeah. That’s who you are. When you’re ready to admit it, you know where to find me.”


	3. Chapter 3

“No fucking fighting.” 

He tilts his head to the side, when Tommy’s head is turned, and whispers to John, “Not until his new wife sees that I’m here. What do you think, tears or making a scene by screaming at me?” grinning when John laughs and tries to conceal it with a cough, failing spectacularly. He doesn’t bother to look apologetic in the slightest when Tommy spins around to look at him, just winks at him and tries not to feel amused and victorious when Tommy glances away, just a hint of colour flooding into his cheeks. 

He knew it was a bad idea, agreeing to come when Ada had asked him to be her date, because she needed one that wouldn’t try it on with her, in her own words. He’d agreed anyway, because despite their issues him and Tommy still grew up together, had known each other for longer than anyone that wasn’t related to the two of them. Ada had shot down his ideas of sending flowers instead, telling him that he was just as much family as anyone, and there’s not much anyone can do to stop Ada once she gets an idea into her head. 

“Are we done in here, because my date’s out there and I owe her a dance. I’ll even stay away from the assholes in uniform.” 

“I wasn’t sure if you were coming.”

“I wasn’t, but Ada had different ideas, and you know I’d never pass up a chance to see Charlie.” 

It’s not a secret that Grace hates him spending time with Charlie, which honestly is half of the appeal, but he does love the boy even if he finds his mother completely insufferable. He’d never hold grievances against a child for what their parents have done, that’s just cruel. The children are innocent. 

“Don’t antagonise her, Leo, I mean it. Leave her alone.”

“Me? I’d never do such a thing, I can’t believe you think so little of me.” The serious tone he’s going for is ruined by the smile he can’t repress, and he doesn’t bother to look around to see if they’re alone when he backs Tommy into the wall, paying close attention to the way Tommy doesn’t fight it and goes along with it, tipping his head back against the bricks to look up at him. “Why would I go near her when I have you right here?” 

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.” It’s the easiest thing, to drag Tommy’s arms above his head and pin them there against the bricks, leaning into him until they’re nose to nose and he can see the way Tommy’s eyes go hazy trying to focus on him, the blue almost swallowed by the black of his pupils. “You never have. You just don’t know how to admit what everyone already knows. Except your new bride, of course. But I get it. Sometimes I want to hate you, and you make it so fucking easy.”

“Leo, are you in here?”

“Coming, Ada!” He lets go of Tommy’s wrists and takes a step back. “I’ll see you later. Give Grace my regards, won’t you?” He’s gone out the door before Tommy can say anything, well aware that if he doesn’t leave now then he never will. 

Ada gives him a look when he emerges from the kitchens, knowing and amused, but she doesn’t say anything when she takes his arm and pulls him across the room to dance. He goes along willingly, mostly amused at the looks he gets from the cunts in uniform that have apparently got enough brain power to realise he’s here as one of Tommy’s family, and it takes everything in him not to say anything to them when he passes them, gliding Ada across the floor as smoothly as he knows how. 

“Has she talked to you yet?”

“Not yet, but I imagine it won’t take long.”

“I’d say the same thing.” Ada gestures towards the door he’d come through, where Tommy is standing and having what appears to be a heated conversation with Grace. “Just don’t do anything too bad, I want to have a nice night.”

“I won’t do anything that she doesn’t do first.”

He pushes the two of them from his mind and focuses on having fun, spinning Ada around while she laughs like she used to when they were children and he’d do the same, the two of them clumsily dancing around Polly’s kitchen and bumping into everything. He switches with John and dances with Esme for a song or two, then Linda, then Polly, then Lizzie. He wouldn’t admit it, but Lizzie was his favourite. Unlike the rest, there was a bond between the two of them that didn’t exist with everyone else, that knowing and commiserating link of two people that had to resort to doing horrible things to pay for a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs, once upon a time. 

“Are you having fun?”

“As much fun as I can have when everyone looks at me like they know exactly what I used to do,” she says, and looks miserable, which just doesn’t sit right with him. 

“Fuck them. What would any of them know about how it feels to not know when the next time you’re going to eat is? They should be looking at you like you’re a fucking legend for surviving.” 

She smiles at him, and he really can’t understand how anyone would see her as anything less than beautiful. Any of the men that whisper about her would be lucky to get to be in her presence.

**

In the end it only takes Grace an hour to come to him after that, which is longer than he thought she’d hold out. It’s probably a personal record. He doesn’t know, the limit of his interactions with her have just been to irritate her as much as possible. 

“You shouldn’t be here.” 

“Why is that?” He lights his cigarette and tilts his head back, looking up at the sky, and doesn’t bother to acknowledge her with a look. “I got an invitation, just like everyone else. Didn’t your husband tell you? There’s a lot he doesn’t tell you, though, isn’t there?” He glances at her, then, and has to try not to laugh at the outraged look on her face. She really does make it too easy to get underneath her skin. “I mean, it makes sense. He doesn’t tell you things, you don’t tell him that you’re selling him out to the police. Made for each other, aren’t you?”

“When are you going to give up? He chose me.”

“Don’t overestimate your own importance, Grace. He chose Charlie, you’re just the accessory that no one wants.” 

“He still didn’t choose you.” 

The thin stream of smoke shoots up into the air when he breathes it out, before it dissolves into nothing and floats away on the wind, and he laughs. Loud, amused laughter that cuts through the night like a knife, and from the corner of his eye he can see the way the smile gradually drops off her face when she realises that her words don’t have the desired effect. Done with the conversation, he crushes the remains of the cigarette underneath his heel and steps towards her, staring down at her with a smile of his own, sharp and mocking. 

“I’ll let you in on a secret, Grace, since you’re family now. He might have married you, the two of you might have a kid, but it means nothing and you know why? Because ever since we were kids, he’s been mine and I’ve been his, and if the war couldn’t even break that, what makes you think you can?” He takes another step forward, until he’s towering over her, “Besides, the way I had him begging for me in my bed last night, and the night before, and the night after he proposed to you? That seems like a choice to me.”


	4. Chapter 4

On his way back from the bathroom, he stops in the doorway and looks over at Tommy in his bed, caught by the way he looks in the lamplight. Even when they were kids, he’d thought Tommy was beautiful, and he’s only gotten more so as they both got older. If it wasn’t for the ring glittering on Tommy’s finger, Leo could almost forget that this would always end when the sun started to rise. Sometimes, he thinks that’s the price he has to pay for his sins; never getting Tommy for more than a night at a time. Cursed with knowing that his heart belongs to someone that would never stay. It’s something that he’s learnt to accept, that these nights are the best he’ll ever get.

“Are you just going to stare at me for the rest of the night?”

Tommy rolls over to face him, when he gets back into the bed, and the look on his face is more relaxed and happy than anyone else ever gets to see. It’s a small comfort, compared to knowing that he’ll be alone when he wakes, and the smell of Tommy’s aftershave lingering on the pillows and sheets will be the only indicator that he was there at all. Maybe that’s his penance, having the only person he’s ever wanted, but having it all ripped away from him, night after night. There are times, rare though they are, that Tommy’s the one that asks him to stay. Even though it only hurts more, to say no, he never does. It’s already hard enough to watch him go. He thinks that if he got to know what it was like to have Tommy, completely, going back to these stolen moments afterwards would drive him mad.

Leo loves him, and he hates him, and he hates that they live in a society that would never be accepting of them no matter how hard they fought. When it comes to the people most important to the both of them, they already know, but he’ll never be able to have the kind of life that he’s seen so much of. Dates disguised as business meetings, stolen moments when no one is looking, always staying a careful distance away in public. He’d be lying if he said he hasn’t thought about what it would be like, if that ring on Tommy’s finger had been put there by him. What it would be like, to kiss him no matter where they are, so everyone knows who Tommy belongs to, and that Tommy has him in return.

“You’re beautiful. Do something for me?”

“Within reason.”

“Tell me you love me.”

He knows that Tommy does, in the same way that he knows the sky is blue and grass is green. It just is. Ever since they were kids, they’ve belonged to each other, even if they can never be open about it. Tommy looks at him, with those blue, blue eyes, and doesn’t say anything for a few long minutes. Leo doesn’t take his eyes off him. He doesn’t think he could if he tried. He could spend hours looking at him, committing every detail to memory, and never get tired of it. He has spent hours getting intimately acquainted with the curves and dips of Tommy’s body, all the lines of hard muscle and the spots where he’s softer. He’ll never get tired of that either. If heaven exists, he’s not sure, but if it does then it’ll be him, Tommy, and a bed big enough to spread him out on.

“Leo-”

Tommy closes his eyes, and Leo wants to peel them back open again. Don’t close your eyes, don’t hide from me, he thinks, if these nights are all I’ll have then I want all of you for however long it lasts. Look at me, I’m right here, I’ve always been right here. He doesn’t say any of that. What he says, instead, pretending that his voice doesn’t break and tears don’t gather in the corners of his eyes, is “Even if it’s just for the night. Lie to me. Tell me you’re going to stay.”


	5. Chapter 5

  


“Keep your hands here.” He pushes Tommy’s wrists down into the bed, at his sides and looks up at him, keeping his hands trapped against the sheets. “You’re not allowed to move unless I say so.” Leo backs off, confident that Tommy won’t move, because he never does when Leo talks to him in this voice, low and commanding. He’ll twitch, and shiver, but he won’t lift his hands. Not yet, anyway. They both know that from experience. Leo shifts down until he’s got Tommy’s legs open his shoulders and turns to look for the tube of oil he’d brought with him. Tommy’s hands are still where they’re supposed to be, until Leo bites down into the skin of his inner thigh, and then they’re grabbing at his shoulders. He pulls back with a frown and shoves them back down to where they were. Any other time, he’d do something more, maybe get the rope, but he kisses him on the wrist instead, taking pity on him in his post-orgasm haze.

“Did I tell you that you could move?”

“Then fucking do som-ah!” 

He bites down again, deeper this time, drawing blood that fills his mouth with copper. When he looks back up, he notices that Tommy’s hands have clenched in the sheets but they haven’t moved. Good. The bite mark on his thigh has gone purple already, and he knows that it’s going to bruise, that Tommy’s going to feel it for the next few weeks while it heals. It fills him with a dark kind of glee, knowing that Grace is going to see it and know exactly who put it there. He leaves a trail of them, up over Tommy’s hips stretching all the way to his collarbones, and takes his time doing it. By the time he’s reached Tommy’s lips, the other man is sweating and clenching his fingers in the sheets so tight Leo is surprised the fabric hasn’t torn by now. 

“Who do you belong to?”

Tommy’s eyes are hazy when they open and look at him, the blue taken over by the blown out pupils. 

“Leo, I don’t-”

“Come on, pretty boy. Tell me who’s the only one that can do this to you.”

“You, god damn it.”

“What do you think about when you’re with her?”

“This. I think about this. Leo, please.”

When he wraps his fingers around Tommy’s cock, finally, he arches up with a sob and tries to rock into it, but Leo’s arm across his hips keeps him flat on the bed and he can’t do much more than twitch. Leo grins at him wickedly but takes pity on him, and keeps stroking him with his left hand while he pops the cap on the oil with the other and slicks up his fingers. 

“Where does she think you are right now?” It’s a beautiful sight, seeing how Tommy drops his head back when Leo gets two fingers into him, and he curves them to hit the spot he’s had memorised for years, pressing kisses into the side of Tommy’s knee when he shouts and lifts one hand to claw at Leo’s arm. He thinks about pulling back, punishing him for it like he would any other night, but he’ll let it pass this time. “What would she think, if she could see you now? Spread out in front of me where you belong, begging for me?” Two fingers turns into three, and he pushes them in as slowly as he can, knows that the drag will be more intense than anything, and spreads them once they’re inside the tight heat. “I should keep you here, never let you leave my bed. Just keep you right where you are, have you however I wanted, leave you fucking wrecked.”

“You’ve got a filthy mouth.”

“You love my mouth, Thomas Shelby. It had you crying last week.”

The flush that takes over Tommy’s face at his words is more adorable than it has any right to be.

“Sometimes I wonder if I could get you off just by talking to you. Should we test it out?”

“No!” Tommy raises his head and looks at him with a vaguely pleading look on his face. It’s still the same thrill now as it was the first time, being the one to reduce this usually in control man down to nothing. It’s still addicting. “Don’t-”

“Shh, I’ve got you.”

He pulls Tommy’s hand off him and drags it up to his hair, humming when Tommy pulls lightly, testing the boundaries, then goes back to the task at hand. Years of experience have made him practically an expert at hitting all of Tommy’s buttons. “Do you need a hand?” He trails a hand down Tommy’s stomach, slowly, dragging his nails again to make him shiver, and looks up when Tommy grabs his hand to stop him. 

“I’m- Just, keep going.” 

He’s not moving the fingers inside Tommy anymore, just massaging circles against his prostate, getting harder with every cycle. It takes maybe another minute, he’s not sure of the time anymore, only the fingers in his hair and the way Tommy looks.

“Fuck oh fuck oh fuckohfuckohfuck.”

“You look so fucking good like this,” he says, watching the way Tommy arches up from the bed and stays there, legs trembling around Leo’s shoulders, before the climax rips through him and he falls back to the bed, panting hard and his eyes falling closed. His fingers are still tight in Leo’s hair, and they loosen after a few long moments, turning to lazy stroking. He opened his eyes when Leo sat up and leaned sideways, to grab the bottle of water he’d stashed there beforehand, and holds it to Tommy’s lips. 

“You’re beautiful. Drink, it’ll help.” Tommy’s got no choice, no fight left in him anyway, so he does, and sighs in contentment when Leo rubs along his side, murmuring to him about how well he did. It’s then that he notices that the fingers inside him haven’t left, still resting there, and it feels like it takes all his effort to lift his head and look at his lover, sitting in between his thighs. 

“One more?”

“I’ve already done twice, I don’t think I can again.”

“Oh, I think you can,” he says, and then goes back to driving Tommy out of his mind with pleasure. At some point, he’s not entirely sure, his mouth gets involved, and all Tommy can do is lay there and take it. He’s sure that he’s making some truly ridiculous noises, but can’t help it, not when there’s a mouth around his cock and fingers inside him, hitting him in just the right place. 

“I can’t- Leo, please, I need-”

He catches the barest glimpse of Leo’s eyes before he drops his head down, taking Tommy as deep as he can at the same time that he presses hard into his prostate with all four fingers, and that’s it, he’s gone, barely managing to drag the pillow over his face in an attempt to muffle the scream he can’t hold in. There’s nothing left in him, not after that, and his entire body aches. By the time he comes back to himself, he’s been cleaned off and he’s under the covers, Leo pressed against his back. 

“You did good, baby, you’re amazing. Do you need anything?”

He’s not surprised to hear that his voice is wrecked, when he gathers enough of his brain cells to answer. 

“What the fuck did you just do to me?”

“Ruined you for everyone else.”


End file.
